Modern technology has allowed business owners and entrepreneurs to work without physically being at the office. GrowthBusiness examines how to keep your workforce nimble-footed.

Modern technology has allowed business owners and entrepreneurs to work without physically being at the office. GrowthBusiness examines how to keep your workforce nimble-footed.

When a company is almost entirely made up of staff working remotely, technology is crucial. Richard Alberg, founder and CEO of job website MyWorkSearch, says, ‘As a start-up, keeping costs to a minimum was quite high on the agenda, so for that reason being a virtual company made sense.

However, we then became rather successful and ended up growing a lot.’ The problem of coordination and teamwork became apparent at around 25 staff, but Alberg made a pledge to make the virtual company work by introducing more sophisticated technology.

Accordingly, he brought in customer relationship management (CRM) software, a platform to aid online collaboration, a knowledge management tool and a VoIP (internet telephony) system.

Jat Mann, managing director of PC support service PC PAL Franchising, runs another truly mobile company. He says, ‘We can take calls, book jobs, update information and send out receipts – all out in the field. We don’t have any premises or offices. We are very much a mobile workforce, and I doubt there is any company more dependent on mobile IT than we are.’

Mann’s system works on PCs, BlackBerrys, iPhones, iPads, Android devices and instant messaging and chat systems. ‘The way IT moves, you’re constantly locked into the cycle of enhancing the products, but you feel the benefits as well,’ he says.

There are more elaborate (and expensive) ways to use technology for remote working, some of which could help you make savings in other areas. Hult International Business School set out to introduce videoconferencing to its network of campuses to save travel costs, as well as improving communication between locations and reducing its carbon footprint.

CIO of the school Yousuf Khan says, ‘Not only has the videoconferencing suite enabled us to become more productive, communicate more efficiently and reduce the overall need to travel by approximately 10 to 15 per cent, it’s also provided us with other advantages such as enabling a broader communication outreach.’ In short, the technology has ‘pretty much paid for itself’.

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